Theology Faculty Book Among “Outstanding Academic Titles” for 2012

Choice magazine has included two books by faculty members in Notre Dame’s College of Arts and Letters on its list of Outstanding Academic Titles for 2012.

John Sitter, the Mary Lee Duda Professor of Literature in the Department of English, was selected for his Cambridge Introduction to Eighteenth-Century Poetry, while Timothy Matovina, professor of theology and executive director of the Institute for Latino Studies, was honored for Latino Catholicism: Transformation in America’s Largest Church, which also won the College Theology Society’s Best Book Award in 2012, as well as the 2013 Paul J. Foik, C.S.C. Award from the Texas Catholic Historical Society.

Published by the Association for College and Research Libraries (part of the American Library Association), Choice annually reviews about 7,000 titles from every academic discipline. The Outstanding Academic Titles list includes only the top 10 percent of these titles. Winning works are chosen based on “overall excellence in presentation and scholarship,” “originality,” and “value to undergraduate students,” among other characteristics.

Sitter specializes in 18th century poetry but is also interested in the role of poetry in education from the 17th century to present, ecological criticism and poetics, and cultural issues of sustainability.

His Cambridge Introduction is a critical survey that brings together the techniques and major poets of the 18th century in an approachable introduction for students, teachers, and general readers of literature.

“I’m delighted to receive this recognition,” Sitter says. “I hope the designation means they found it to be what I hoped to write: a book that speaks to both specialists and non-specialists.”

Matovina studies theology and culture, with a particular focus on U.S. Catholic and U.S. Latino theology and religion. In Latino Catholicism, he explores the 500-year-long history of Latino Catholics on this continent and how that history, the U.S. Catholic Church, its expanding Latino population, and American culture are now all transforming each other.